IDC: CRM Market Grows as Apps Get Social

What's not to 'Like'? Providers of CRM apps look to social CRM to help maintain healthy growth.

In 2011, the top 10 CRM application vendors captured nearly half the $19.1 billion customer relationship management (CRM) software market, according to new data released today by IDC.

IBM's CRM efforts have started to pay off. Big Blue managed to crack the list of top 10 CRM vendors -- of the 190 providers that IDC tracks -- thanks to double-digit growth.

Battle of CRM Giants

The top spot belongs to Oracle, which captured 11 percent of the market. SAP and Salesforce.com follow in a tight battle for second place, with 9.9 percent and 9.5 percent market shares, respectively. Rounding out the top five are Avaya, with 3.6 percent of the market, and SEC with 3.3 percent.

The outlook isn't as good for the contact center market, however. IDC forecasts that while growth in contact center applications will continue, it will be at a slower, single-digit pace and result in a 3.4 percent drop of market share through 2016.

Social CRM Has Market A-Twitter

One category that shows no signs of slowing is social CRM. Expect social media-enabled applications to give the CRM market new momentum as companies rush to incorporate Facebook, Twitter and other popular social services into their CRM strategies, said Mary Wardley, program vice president of CRM Applications for IDC.

"The CRM applications market is poised on the threshold of a transformation with legacy installations being transformed into socially-aware applications environments," she said in a company release. "An influx of new social vendors and acquisitions of social CRM applications providers by established vendors augmenting their offerings for rapid market entry is invigorating the market."

And don't expect the Salesforces and Oracles of the world to stop buying smaller CRM companies any time soon, said Wardley. "The activity is expected to continue through 2012 and is bringing net new revenue to the space.”